Liontamer

Yeah, I remember KyleJCrb requested for me to play this on VGF once it came out, and I turned it down due to how ridiculously overcompressed this is. Crunchy the whole way, with no high-end whatsoever. Danny B absolutely laid out the problems on this one. Production is grating/shrill/terrible and this needs more rearrangement compared to the source tune. It would be a more servicable offering if you guys just toned this down and refined the sounds. NO

Indeed, this was just a poorly done cover. The bass coming in at :08 is flat-out terrible, and doesn't anything to this. The piano could have used more meat on it. Rinse & repeat at :45. Um...1:22, what the hell? Sonically, there's no depth to this at all. Decent enough ideas at making a mix that doesn't stay in one place for too long, but jeez. The chorus of the third track being mixed here (2:45) was probably the best part of the track if I had to name one. Anyway, like Ari said, everything is poorly thrown together. Bleh all over. NO

Correction! Today is VGF #22 from 10:05 PM - 1:35 AM EST, so head over to Ormgas to check it out and follow along with the playlist. Join #ormgas on IRC/EntertheGame (irc://irc.enterthegame.com/ormgas) to chat it up. NOW NOW NOW! VGF22 is really good. And that concludes my pimping of THAT one. Good way for me to recycle the previous^5 message. Bitch.

Today is VGF #26 from 10:10 PM - 1:40 AM EST, so head over to Ormgas to check it out and follow along with the playlist. Join #ormgas on IRC/EntertheGame (irc://irc.enterthegame.com/ormgas) to chat it up. VGF26 features old-school OC ReMixer (and now Emory alum) Electron as my guest host! Be sure to check it out for a number of tracks from him as well as plenty of other good stuff. Good way for me to recycle the previous^4 message. Bitch.

Today is VGF #25 from 1:55 - 6 PM EST, so head over to Ormgas to check it out and follow along with the playlist. Join #ormgas on IRC/EntertheGame (irc://irc.enterthegame.com/ormgas) to chat it up. Good way for me to recycle the previous previous previous message. Bitch.

Bought a new laptop for myself. Next Saturday, we will back with regular VGFs all da time and so forth. During the next few weeks, I'll be working to gather up lots of stuff I lost, but will hopefully have BGM and VGM and all that crud to play. I'll be hoping to do 4 extra shows (I believe I missed 4) in order to catch up with all the material put out in October. Keep an eye out for crud. Yep. Crud.

Other people may have it, but it will be temporarily mirrored today only by fellow Ormgas staff member Cartoons: http://oc.ormgas.com/forum_viewtopic.php?18.7884. Make sure to change the filename to show it as VGF #24. Starts in 10 minutes from this post, and lasts 4hr40min on the Ormgas.com stream. Enjoy, peeps.

Today is VGF #24 from 5:40 - 10:20 AM EST, so head over to Ormgas to check it out and follow along with the playlist. Join #ormgas on IRC/EntertheGame (irc://irc.enterthegame.com/ormgas) to chat it up. It's the April Fool's 2004 episode, indeed widely considered to be the best episode of VGF ever. You need to check it out. Good way for me to recycle the previous previous message. Bitch.

Rab basically said this was just him fiddling with some ambient pads and sound effects for a couple of hours or whatever; not too much effort involved on the creation side, but I judge on the finished product not necessarily the effort it took to get there. Loved this mix ever since I first heard it and it's one of my favorites off KiC. I didn't compare this with "Misty Menace" for a while after listening to this track, so though this mix doesn't have much of a melody, it really expanded things upon actual comparison with the source a few months ago, which was a very pleasant surprise. Though simple and straightfoward, lots of subtle elements came together to form an enjoyable ambiance, and Rab's sure to pick up some fans who enjoy this relaxing, yet melancholy and ominous soundscape. Get ready to loop this one. YES

Wait, that's an AIM noise I hear at :54. This makes this submission either suspicious or stupid, honestly. Not a bad string-based with some rain ambiance, but it could use more development within it's mere 2:31, since I doubt the source tune is very minimalist. Plus, we don't need AOL discovering that AIM sound and suing Dave for billions of dollars. NO

Definitely flat delivery here; work on providing contrast between your instruments. Too bad, since there are some solid rearrangement ideas. The bass guitar synth or whatever that is at 1:10 sounds awful compared to the rest of the sounds, which weren't sequenced that strongly, but at least sounded a measure better. The ending indeed sputters out. This could be so much more. NO (refine the sounds & resub for a YES)

Not a bad over-compressed vibe to start off with, but the intro's way too long (with no particular substance) for a 2:49 track. Some simple ambient textures come in at :59, along with a nice addition to the beats at 1:13. The melody coming in at 1:28 is totally in the wrong key compared to the beats, along with the percussion support coming in at 1:42 (which sounded too muffled). The idea for the ending at 2:26 was very anti-climactic/I give up-ish. Not terrible, but I'm definitely not feeling how everything came together, given how it ultimately turned out. The intro needs the fat trimmed off, the notes to not clash, and needs much more substance crammed into the rearrangament for such a short track. NO

Pretty muted and dry presentation. No meat behind it whatsoever. Seriously learn how to thicken up the sounds on this and fill this out. Like Vig said, and I'm sure Prot will say, extend the ideas here with more material as well. Not much else to say, as the rearrangment had some decent ideas. This would need a lot more substance and stronger sounds to pass at a mere 2:11 though. NO

http://216.40.213.39/%7Eadmin216/digital/lsl1cd/LSL1Track17.ogg - "Eve (Closing Scenes)" Ben PMed asking for feedback while this was in the submissions process. I'm surprised it even made it here, but here were my comments. Finally getting a hold of the source tune, the second half of the mix was decent in trying to do at least something with the source, but this was just a poorly done rip for most of it. Not trying to be mean, but to me you basically took the original MIDI, messed the timing up in the attempt to remix it and came out with an arguably worse product. No dice, bro. NO

As a genre adaptation piece, this could have been much more interpretive and more creative. That's already been gone over well by Dan & DS. Once this retread into the same stuff at 2:56, you knew this wasn't going anywhere in particular unfortunately. The conga work wasn't particularly invasive to me, but it certainly wasn't working there. No real variation to speak of within about 5 of the 6 minutes. You just gotta be more, bro. NO

Not bad stuff. I'm certainly interested in what Disco Dan would have thought about this one. Fairly spacey-sounding, but this could have sounded a bit cleaner production-wise. The rearrangement wasn't too bad, but there could have been more substance there when tackling the actual source tune melody. The tempo was a little plodding at times, and there could have been more substance with the drums; nothing crazy that would have disturbed the flow here, per se, but there could have been something more creative done there to vary things up. 3:00-3:06 felt like there was going to be some cool "one mo time fo da bass" transisition, but nope. At 3:08, you retread into the same source material coverage with only a little variation around the 3:45 mark before heading into the close with another minute left. If this wasn't going to tread any new ground there, it should have been trimmed down, as it gets repetitive while not really maintaining interest. Felt bad for those strings only being used at the very beginning and the very end. Just check out the observations I had and make your own refinements based on those in case you want to resubmit. Good foundations are in place, Jay, but there need to be some more ideas/developments present in a mix that's 4:47 long. NO

Pretty laid back, but like the others have said, the execution is lacking. The bass sounds pretty exposed and too artificial. The whole effort is laid-back, but too dry-sounding in the delivery and lacks in sound balance to me. All of the sequenced material (organ, guitar, bass) is dry. The sax and drums (but not the trumpet) needed more presence, as the sequenced material was louder than the live work most of the way through. The arrangement was decent I suppose, but took no risks. Prime material for a resubmit. No sarcasm intended, but OneUp Studios' fans would certainly enjoy this laid back, mostly-live work. It shows a great deal of effort and promise. Hope y'all give this another few takes to spice up the delivery on the live instruments, try and address the sound balance issues, and possibly add some more rearrangement ideas to expand the scope of the track. Hope you hear from you again. NO (refine & resubmit)

The bad before the good. Stuff like that damn slap bass, bah, that's already an Ari staple but it sounds like trash, and I thought the half note drum snaps were overbearing at times as opposed to the other drums hits which were too sedate and didn't fill out the track as well as I felt they could have. The presentation here felt WIP-ish, analogous to how the sounds with "Forest Birdcussion" weren't quite as full last February with his OGG WIP, before he looked at everything and went for fuller sounds in the final version for that mix. No particular problems here though. Some people won't like the sound choices here and on that level I'm sure there could have been more refinement there, but in many ways (and I know this isn't a great analogy), like I mentioned to Ari on VGF when I talked to him about this, many of the sounds really came across to me like someone pushing the limits of the SNES's sound chip. The synth guitar along with most everything else had a very good 16-bit type texture, which wasn't anything Ari was actively going for as far as I know, but it was there in spirit. Very creative work, and I enjoyed most aspects of the medley; great arrangement ideas, and good transitions on the whole. YES

Pretty cool stuff overall. The only glaring problems I had were from 1:49-1:52 & 2:05-2:09 with that glassy sound you guys used, as it sounds odd compared with the key of the track. Also, 2:53 had a somewhat piercing synth for support that lasted until 3:11. I would have brought the volume on that synth down just a bit. Very excellent variation throughout the mix, as there were several permutations of the groove throughout each verse to really keep things moving. Played this one a month ago on VGF, and it was all good. Mike & Allen are turning into quite the collab team. Quality stuff from them as usual. YES

Frankly, I'm not saying this was a superlative remix. But taking into account all of the areas of contention people had, as well as myself being called out for not voting along the guidelines/standards here, I felt I had to respond to them in the attempt to flesh out my vote for everyone. In terms of the production, I felt it was lacking and could have been improved, but was passable. Vigilante complained that the track was missing sounds from the low end and that the guitars didn't sound clear enough, and by extension emotive enough, due to the mic-ing and mastering. After listening several more times with Vig's encouragement, I nonetheless continue to feel that the recording/production was passable, if only barely, like Danny B also said despite his NO. I felt that the delivery here was not too flat and that the rhythms here were fairly emotive and spirited, especially once things particularly picked up at 2:04 with the segue into the second half. I did agree with Vig thought that more panning or separation of sounds would have helped distinguish the two guitar tracks more during the second-half improv section, but didn't feel that the weakness of the recording was poor enough to push this down into the NO category. In terms of the ending with the THUMP at the end, I don't have a problem with it in principle, as others have used it as an ending, but for this track specifically, the ending comes off as poor, abrupt, and unresolved. There was a last note that should have faded down at 3:18 instead of the thump. I agreed with most of the panel who docked the mix some points for that. In terms of the performance, I am not a meticulous guitar expert and admittedly have lower/not as strict standards on performance, as any mistakes will inherently be more glaring and aggravating to the guitarists of the group. At the same time though, I definitely did not disregard any mistakes I heard. Danny B was particularly put off by the performance, with things being heard from him such as off-notes, timing issues, and badly buzzing strings due to poor fret pressure (I believe 1:15 is an example of that). I heard the flub at 1:15, but, other than the end (THUMP), I didn't notice that there were many other issues/gaffes that jarringly (rather than minorly) impacted the performance. Whether or not OCR currently has a "good enough" bar set for these types of pieces is a bigger issue, but ultimately I go by what I hear and how well I feel that was executed. So when you ask me if the delivery on the guitar was satisfactory based on the standards we've had for live guitar pieces, I say yes. Like Vigilante also said despite his NO, I felt the performance was passable. In terms of the arrangement, I felt this was extremely conservative when dealing with the source material, but was still serviceable as simply the first half of a larger idea for the track. As I said in conversation on this, if this was simply a 3:30 track with this cover motif as the whole thing, it would not pass; however it has the second half to expand upon the tone of the first half, which does its part to save the track. As I also said in conversation on this, if this was simply a 3:30 track with this original motif as the whole thing, it would not pass; however it has the first half to provide the arranged content, which does its part to save the track. Both halves needed to be there in order for this mix attempt to actually click with me. Despite the style overhaul of the second half, I felt the use of the same instruments and similar chords throughout the mix did well to preserve the tone established in the first half, making the thematic connection of the two halves very natural-sounding to me, unlike how many of the others felt. In terms of the guidelines... ...I felt this did an adequate job (and I stress merely adequate because my vote was borderline) changing the source tune's genre through altering aspects such as the instrumentation, dynamics and tempo through this straightforward yet nuanced guitar arrangement as well as the addition of the all-original second half that substantially expanded upon the motifs of the first half’s source material. For me, these were all alterations and additions that worked in conjunction in a satisfactory way. Along with my belief that the production was reasonably serviceable enough and that the delivery on the guitar work was flawed yet ultimately strong enough, all of those factors are what led me to YES this submission for its relative quality as well as on the basis of adhering to OCR’s guidelines.I think the important point with a piece like this that was borderline or at least genuinely arguable on several levels is that no one should judge this in too declarative a manner, which I honestly felt Protricity was doing in our various panel discussions (and to a lesser extent Danny B before he & I calmed down and tried to break things down referring to the actual guidelines). As a group, we should generally respect the votes of other panelists in regards to whether or not they voted in deference to OCR’s submission guidelines and our general standards. Despite the common desire for rigid, uniform standards that would somehow be "easier" to enforce, they are an impossibility in a reality where music can be executed in so many different ways and the judges themselves do not necessarily have uniform beliefs when interpreting a common set of standards. I feel that the best we can do as judges when we run into debates on these issues is to remain receptive and amicable to debate, discussion, and the opinions of those whom you disagree with, even those you markedly disagree with. When I make nearly any vote, I cast my vote only for the mix in front of me, as I think that’s to OCR’s primary benefit, and not on the potential impact of the decision for OCR as a whole, as that could bias a vote just as much as YESing a mix by a friend without the track being good enough, or being afraid to NO a submission due to potential artist or community backlash. All in all though, I wholeheartedly approve this NO from the panel, because while I don't believe this submission was a violation, passing it also would have set a bad precedent for OCR by potentially encouraging other hopefuls to copy this unorthodox (and frankly iffy) formula, yet not be nearly as successful with it.

Tonight is VGF #23 from 1 - 3:50 PM EST, so head over to Ormgas to check it out and follow along with the playlist. Join us in #ormgas on IRC/EntertheGame (irc://irc.enterthegame.com/ormgas) to chat it up. Good way for me to recycle the previous message. Bitch.

I didn't know Double A's grandma liked my radio show. It attracts all types. Glad she enjoys it, Aaron. Yeah, as far as rearrangements go, AB's was by far the most impressive to me on Kong in Concert. As a mere listener, I enjoy Prophecy's the most, but Adhesive Boy's relatively few and far between remixes have all been unorthodox rearrangement ideas along with great execution. Pretty unique sounds compared to what else is available here at OC, and just amazing work overall.

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 402 Weapon Raid Like I said earlier, I apologize for having a lower bar than Danny and Jared Hudson, but I believe this is capable-enough orchestration work for our site standards. The source theme was rearranged and handled quite well (along with references to other themes), despite this remix being in a somewhat similar musical style to the original. Lots of good support instrument ideas made for creative additions I heard compared with the original, and I felt the "Weapon Raid" theme itself was altered pretty well. I'm not sure why anyone would potentially cry foul on the rearrangement. The source theme is 1:16 long and this mix doesn't seem to use the verbatim source structure as a crutch at all. Unless I somehow have the wrong theme, it's a fine medley piece. If I have the wrong theme from the PSF pack, let me know. Some of the brass sampling was handled very poorly, and, dynamically speaking, I thought this was relatively flat and needed a lot more contrast in instrument intensities and so forth. But again, this was at least capable orchestration and rearrangement work to me, and I had no big problems with it on that level. The arrangement made up for a relatively weaker use of quality samples. YES

Cool ideas, Steve. I liked the piano coming in at :18, but the snapping percussion is a bit too loud over this in the long-run. There's actually some charm in the light cymbal work being so audible, so while the snaps would sound better at a lower volume, I like the notable presence of the percussion in your ear. 1:16 sounds vaguely reminiscent of Quinn Fox's style. The move into the freestyle section at 1:54 really does come across as having no structure or thematic connection with the style of the source arrangement. Prot was right in that the bass was way too loud; this was particularly glaring to me from 1:54-2:31; the bass sample was terribly exposed at that point. The move back into Zangief's theme at 2:34 was abrupt and forced. There also wasn't development shown from 2:34-3:11 given that this groove was already established verbatim earlier in the mix. The transition into 3:50 for your finish also sounded wrong to me; also very abrupt and "I give up"-ish. Needs more variation with the percussion patterns and light piano strikes, more fleshed-out ideas with the freeform stuff, some real transitions; spice it up and give the solos more cohesion; the foundations here are good but this needs more work to realize this idea's potential. NO (refine & resubmit)

Submitted back in March, this definitely FT'ed. Like I just told Lee, and after hearing it again, I thought there were some muddy parts, mostly percussion, that would have sounded better with sharper mixing (generally liked the reverb though), and I believe from my quick listen that the second half was repetitive and lacked development. I'll do a more thorough look and vote later, but those were my initial thoughts. EDIT: I heard clicks & pops all throughout the intro (:01, :07, :09, :14, :15, :16). Otherwise though, the intro was well-textured. As soon as the melody and bassline came in at :57 though, the weakness of the production really stuck out. There seems to be an overall lack of sharpness or punch in the sounds. Even with well-thought out ideas, like 2:15 when you had the arpeggiated synth support come in along with more snap on the percussion, the production really prevented things from having any big impact. As you segued into 2:54, I felt the mix was basically retreading the ideas already presented without enough other things that would have kept the mix fresh, such as an instrument change or further alterations of the source tune arrangement. The layering of the source melody and the countermelody side-by-side at 3:32 was a good idea, but ultimately didn't feel like significant development. If you're willing to still look at this one, Lee, I'd suggest working to present some new ideas in the last minute for a more varied/satisfying close, as well as sharpening things up with the mixing. I like the ideas here, but the production and last minute need refinement. NO